Kim Mulkey declines further comment on Washington Post story

A yet-to-be-published story from the Washington Post has caused plenty of furor around the LSU women’s basketball program and head coach Kim Mulkey. And despite her forceful responses to the news of an impending story — one that will apparently not cast Mulkey or her program in a favorable light — Mulkey continues to face questions.

Ahead of No. 3 seed LSU’s Sweet 16 matchup against No. 2 seed UCLA, Mulkey demurred on discussing the matter further when asked. She deferred to previous statements and said she’s focused on winning against the Bruins.

“I did make a statement, and that’s all I’ll comment on at this time because all I am focused on is to try and win another basketball game,” Mulkey said. “Thank you for asking, though.”

Further questions to probe what Mulkey had learned about the subject matter of the story — in requesting a sit down interview for the story and then sending a list of questions, Post reporter Kent Babb naturally had to reveal the nature of the story, to some extent — got no meaningful answers.

“I’m only here today to talk about the next game,” Mulkey said.

She was asked if she thinks a similar story would be written about a men’s coach or men’s basketball.

“That’s for you to write,” Mulkey said.

Mulkey’s initial response to news of the impending story was aggressive

Mulkey offered a passionate statement during her March 23 press conference, promising to fight back.

“This reporter has been working on a story about me for two years,” Mulkey said. “After two years of trying to get me to sit with him for an interview, he contacts LSU on Tuesday as we were getting ready for the first round game of this tournament, with more than a dozen questions demanding a response by Thursday, right before we were scheduled to tip off. Are you kidding me?

“This was a ridiculous deadline that LSU and I could not possibly meet, and the reporter knew it. It was just an attempt to prevent me from commenting and an attempt to distract us from this tournament. It ain’t gonna work, buddy.”

Mulkey said she declined an interview with the reporter due to a story they wrote about football coach Brian Kelly after he took over for Ed Orgeron. She said she also heard about the reporting process, which saw her former coaches and some former players receive phone calls.

“Unfortunately, this is part of a pattern that goes back years,” Mulkey said. “I told this reporter two years ago that I didn’t appreciate the hit job he wrote on Brian Kelly, and that’s why I wasn’t going to do an interview with him. After that, the reporter called two former college coaches of mine and left multiple messages that he was ‘with me’ in Baton Rouge to get them to call him back – trying to trick these coaches into believing that I was working with the Washington Post on a story.

“When my former coaches and found out that I wasn’t talking with the reporter, they were just distraught and they felt completely misled. Former players have told me that the Washington Post has contacted them and offered to let them be anonymous in a story if they’ll say negative things about me. The Washington Post has called former disgruntled players to get negative quotes to include in their story. They’re ignoring the 40-plus years of positive stories that they had heard from people about me.”